


Kingdom[s]

by starcunning



Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: Ambiguously Shippy, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:00:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23018947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starcunning/pseuds/starcunning
Summary: “Proposal,” 042 said. “Unit A2 should return to the city.”“We’re not doing that,” A2 said.“As a reminder,” it continued, “YoRHa units are not equipped for sustained deployment in darkness. This unit is concerned for unit A2’s welfare.”“Don’t worry,” she groused.---“What do you want to do next?” he prompted her after a moment, pausing to disrupt the lock on the till so that he could dump two handfuls of G into its dusty partitions. He closed the drawer again with the chiming of bells, and 2B folded the shirts over her arms, looking thoughtful.“I don’t know,” she said. That had been a rare admission from her, once, but she had said it a time or two before. 9S didn’t quite know what to make of it.“Why don’t we just go home for now,” he suggested.
Relationships: 2B & 9S (NieR: Automata), 2B/9S (NieR: Automata), A2 & Pod 042 (NieR: Automata)
Kudos: 26





	1. Dark Kingdom

**Author's Note:**

> A gift in a private exchange for a friend who generally prefers to remain anonymous. Much love to the ghost that haunts my inbox.

After Jackass had made her final report, Anemone had taken her aside. There, as gently as possible, she had explained to A2 the last betrayal of YoRHa command.

Then she had asked, “Is there anything you need?”

A2 had said, “I don’t know. Maybe a jet?”

To her great surprise, she had gotten one.

At the terminus it was always sunset. Flying east across the ocean, she could not help but think of the Pearl Harbor mission, and half a hundred since then, most of them on her own recognizance. All those people—friends, lovers, allies—they were all behind her now, literally and figuratively. Most of them were dead, aside from Anemone and the two other surviving YoRHa units. She didn’t think she’d see them again. This was not a fear or forboding presentiment, nor was it even something so sturdy as a decision. It was, for now, a nascent thought, slipping over her the same way the clouds flowed over the wing of her flight unit.

“Landing site confirmed,” said Pod 042, jolting her from her reminiscence. “Coordinates set for automatic descent.”

“You could have just left me dreaming,” A2 grumbled. She turned her face away from the setting sun on the right side of her plane, gazing into the easterly darkness as they slipped southward. Ocean waves gave way to hilly ground, and then to a coastal city. A small landing pad atop a squat, multistory building welcomed her, and A2 climbed out of the jet. She stretched, though there was no real stiffness to her muscles to speak of.

From the fading paint still clinging to the walls, this place had been a hospital once. There were almost none left in the Light Kingdom—with no humans left to tend to, most of them had been repurposed for androids, or else destroyed in any of a dozen wars. But there were no androids nor machines here—and for the same reasons, as far as she understood. There was only the overgrowth of natural life that had come to reclaim the city, and occasionally she heard the sounds of animals moving through the streets.

A2 went east. Her shadow was cast before her all the while, until the gloom made it fade around the edges and then it disappeared into the shadow of night. It took less time than she expected, and as she continued she watched stars bloom overhead.

The last time she had seen them was at the Bunker. That was a painful realization—that she had been denied the sight of stars for so long for the sake of betrayed trust, and then for vengeance. Their light was cold and distant, pinpricks in the firmament above the Night Kingdom. Austere and white and beautiful—much like the Bunker itself.

She had never stopped longing for it. That was easier for A2 to admit, even if only to herself, now that she was so far removed from the others. She didn’t doubt they would understand. Perhaps they felt more strongly still—after A2’s own desertion, her successors would have had that loyalty bred into them, as innate to their being as their very personalities. After all, how else could she explain the other No. 2’s behavior? She had seen 2B’s memories, felt the pain in her heart. How many times had she done something she hated because her loyalty demanded it?

Half a world away, A2 felt freer to consider that, too.

There was a chin of gold upon the sky, cresting over the nearby ridge of hills, and A2 made for them. After hours of silence, her pod finally saw fit to address her.

“Proposal,” 042 said. “Unit A2 should return to the city.”

“We’re not doing that,” A2 said.

“As a reminder,” it continued, “YoRHa units are not equipped for sustained deployment in darkness. This unit is concerned for unit A2’s welfare.”

“Don’t worry,” she groused.

There was a ticking clock in the back of her mind as she climbed up the stone. It was cold to the touch—if sunset were truly only some few hours ago, as the length of A2’s walk should have suggested, it might have been warm yet. But it had been night for longer than anyone could remember, and the petrified remains of plant life that yet dotted the area spoke to that.

“Proposal,” the pod said, and A2 mouthed along to it, and to all the words to follow: “Unit A2 should state her intentions.”

“What if I don’t have any?” she asked.

“Then unit A2 should state her goals, so that this pod may help her formulate a set of intentions.”

“I don’t  _ know, _ pod,” she said, gritting her teeth as she hauled herself up the ridge. “Right now my  _ intentions _ are to get to the top of this hill, and you’re really distracting me.”

“Pod 042 will cease all speech until unit A2 reaches the crest of the ridge,” it said.

“ _ Thank _ you.”

It was as good as its word, although once A2 had slung her leg over the rim and pulled herself up, laying in the dessicated grass, the pod floated into her field of view once more. There was nothing like a face to be found in the flat blankness of its white housing, but from the angle of its position and the way it held its arms she could not help but feel like it was peering down at her. She pushed herself to an upright sitting position, and looked out over the landscape of broken trees and abandoned buildings. They were limned in silver, and the moon hung in the sky opposite.

“Look at that,” she said before the Pod could speak. It hovered beside her shoulder, as though gazing out at the vista beside her. There was a sliver of shadow at the moon’s edge, a crescent of darkness in which she saw a glimmering like stars.

“That is Earth’s Moon,” the pod said, clearly trying to be helpful.

“I know  _ that, _ ” she said, rolling her eyes. “It’s not the same, seeing it during the daytime.”

“Query: Did unit A2 come all this way just to look at the moon?”

“No,” she said. “Well, maybe. Pod, how well do you know 9S?”

It seemed like the pod had to think about it a while, but after a while 042 answered, “This pod was not assigned to support unit 9S. However, this pod did have several extended opportunities to observe Unit 9S’s style of combat and his decision-making process. Moreover, this pod has been in communication with Pod 153, and we have shared our observations with one another, granting us both more complete insight.”

That struck her, and she looked over at the pod, its housing glimmering in the moonlight. “Do you miss her?” she wondered.

Another long pause followed. “This pod is not familiar with what it means to miss someone. And besides,” it added, “this pod is still in contact with Pod 153.”

“Have you told her what we’re doing?”

“Yes,” 042 admitted. “This pod is concerned about the effects on unit A2 if you remain in the Night Kingdom. YoRHa unit androids require sunlight energy to power their continued functioning.”

“Yeah,” A2 said. “Anemone told me. A lot of people told me some stuff I don’t know if I should believe. 9S among them. I guess that’s why I was asking.”

“Proposal,” 042 said after a moment. “Unit A2 should ask this pod your questions. This pod promises to provide as complete an answer as is possible.”

“9S told me that a pair of android units really did send the human genome to the moon a long time ago, during the days of Project Gestalt. True or not true?”

“That appears to be accurate,” 042 said. “This pod was not given full disclosure on records surrounding the moon installation or the Council of Humanity, but became privy to such records later via Pod 153.”

“So those lights we see up there, they really are from an installation on the moon?”

“Correct,” 042 continued. “A small detachment of YoRHa androids maintains operations on the moon, including the maintenance of the genome archive.”

A2 frowned. “Are they, you know, okay?”

“During 9S’s exploration of the YoRHa mainframe, no link was discovered between the Bunker and the moon installation systems. Theoretical: such a link would betray the existence of that detachment to the wider YoRHa forces.”

She should have hated them. They were complicit in Command’s lies—not the one that had driven A2 from YoRHa service, true, but a crucial part of their manipulations nevertheless. Instead she found she pitied them. They had been victims, too, of an even crueler lie.

“Are they still alive?” she wondered.

“Pod 153 reports transmissions from the ‘Council of Humanity’ division even after the destruction of the wider portion of YoRHa’s forces. They may still be functioning.”

“Is my flight unit capable of space travel?”

“Negative,” 042 said. “Your flight unit is rated for atmospheric travel only.”

“I guess I can’t get there, then,” she said.

“Proposal: regular shipments were sent from Earth to the moon via automated ‘slingshot-cannon’ system. Unit A2 could infiltrate a shipping unit and use the ‘slingshot-cannon’ to be sent to the moon.”

“Huh,” she said.

She watched the moon rise a little further above the horizon, artificial lights blinking on its dark side. A2 still felt that sense of loyalty pricking at her; that longing for companionship. She was still gazing at the moon when she spoke. “Alright, Pod,” she said finally. “I’m ready to state my intentions.”

“This pod is ready to receive instructions,” 042 said.

“My intentions are to go to the YoRHa moon installation and check on the other androids. They should probably be told the truth about everything.”

She wasn’t sure, but she thought that perhaps Pod 042 sounded pleased when it said, “Relaying flight coordinates for nearest launch site to your flight unit.”

“Let’s go,” she said.


	2. Light Kingdom

“Which one, do you think?” 2B asked.

9S couldn’t help but laugh, the sound jolting out of his throat. “Why not both?” he said. “It’s not really like money is an object.”

She turned to look at him. Bereft of her blindfold he could see the slyness in her luminous eyes, though the set of her smile did not speak of unalloyed joy. “I thought the agreement was that you would _buy_ me a tee shirt,” she teased. She turned back to the rack a moment later, still scrutinizing the two shirts that Pod 153 was holding up by their hangers.

“Well,” 9S said, “now I’m buying you two. I hope that isn’t a problem, _ma’am_ ?”

She had a wonderful laugh. It spilled from her like pure light, and 9S couldn’t help but feel grateful to even be in its presence sometimes. Even when she did wear the blindfold, it didn’t always disguise the way she would steal furtive glances at him, or how she would lapse into a contemplative frown.

“What do you want to do next?” he prompted her after a moment, pausing to disrupt the lock on the till so that he could dump two handfuls of G into its dusty partitions. He closed the drawer again with the chiming of bells, and 2B folded the shirts over her arms, looking thoughtful.

“I don’t know,” she said. That had been a rare admission from her, once, but she had said it a time or two before. 9S didn’t quite know what to make of it.

“Why don’t we just go home for now,” he suggested.

Probably she would never agree with him on whether or not the Resistance camp was “home,” but it was as close as they had anymore. The Bunker was gone, after all, and with it their individual quarters and all those familiar faces. They were reduced instead to their shared room at the camp, and the growing phratry between them and the Resistance members. It wasn’t the same, and he recognized that too.

But it was still good, he couldn’t help but think, sitting in one of the tents and listening to some music they’d recovered a long time before. 2B had never had the patience to sit and listen to it with him, but he heard her footsteps approaching. When she sat next to him, she was wearing one of the shirts from earlier—white, with bold black text in some ancient alphabet no one could read, along with a crude cartoon of a dog and cat hugging—and a pair of black denim shorts. It was very different from her usual look. Much like the Resistance camp and the Bunker, he supposed.

“You look good,” he said.

“Thank you, Nines,” she replied.

He couldn’t help but smile at that. Whatever else had changed after he had awoken from his long fall off the Tower to find her at rest beside him, at least that was a welcome one. “Have you figured out what’s next yet?”

“Maybe. Do we have any information about when A2 will return?”

9S ran a hand through his hair, scratching at the back of his head. “My pod says not to expect them. Apparently, Pod 042’s last transmission was about her heading to the moon.”

“Then we’ll continue without her,” was 2B’s assessment.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “It’s kinda too bad. I think even she could have come to appreciate the park eventually.”

The smile that 2B turned on him then betrayed that she knew exactly why he was so fond of it—and why he had so often asked her to accompany him there. “Be that as it may, that wasn’t exactly what I was thinking either.”

“Well, what’s on your mind, 2B?”

“I want to rendezvous with the remaining YoRHa units on Earth,” she said. 9S opened his mouth to protest, but before he could say anything, she continued. “That scanner unit at the castle.”

“4S,” he provided.

“You saw him after the logic virus had already wiped out the YoRHa forces.”

“Yeah,” 9S confirmed. “He seemed alright.”

“And there were a few out in the desert. Derelicting their duty, I always thought, but that may be the only thing that saved them. I want to find them. Get everyone together.”

9S looked down for a moment at the way her hands gripped the edge of the bench, her legs bare below the hem of her shorts. The tell-tale seams at the knee gave her away for an android, but he didn’t think that was such a bad thing.

“Why?” he asked after a moment. “So you can appoint yourself Commander and go back to the war?” He looked up into her face, quick enough to see the look of surprise she buried a moment later.

She turned her face away, so that 9S was looking at her in profile. “That isn’t why,” she said calmly. “It isn’t over until they know,” 2B continued. “The cycle we were locked in. When everyone knows the truth, we can decide what to do.”

“What if they think the war is pointless, 2B?” he asked.

She looked at him again, her fringe of platinum hair falling over her eyes. “Do _you_ think it’s pointless?”

“Yes,” 9S was surprised to find himself saying.

“Hm,” was her only reply.

It was he that looked away then, sighing. “Are you gonna leave? If that’s their decision?”

For a long moment there was nothing between them but the music and the sound, so distant, of the Resistance camp continuing its day.

“No,” 2B said at last. “I have no intention of dying alone.” She shifted her weight, the soles of her boots scuffing against the grit-covered floor. “Especially since I only have one life to give now.”

“Maybe we were never supposed to have backups,” 9S said. “When the humans tried it … it didn’t work out so well.”

“No,” she agreed, “it didn’t. Maybe it made us less human, in a way. Maybe it’s only right that we only have one chance. I wonder … if things would have been different if it were always this way.” She looked thoughtful, watching the record spin upon the turntable.

“What are you talking about, 2B?”

She let her head drop, looking down at her tee shirt, then over at him. “I hated it,” she said. “Every time I had to watch you die and then see you walking around the Bunker the next day, unaware that we had ever met. Every time I had to kill you. Even when we began this mission … When I found out you hadn’t backed up your data before initiating the black box reaction … the memories you lost. I never wanted that. But maybe I would have listened to myself about it if I had really realized how permanent it was. We both … we _all_ treated it so cavalierly. We made death cheap, and life followed after. We can’t do that anymore.”

“Nobody is asking you to,” 9S said.

“I never really thought a day would come where I wouldn’t have to wonder when I’d have to kill you next. And I never really thought I’d see a day where you decided this war was pointless. After everything I’ve done, am I really allowed to think that?”

“We both did things,” 9S said. “But after a while it stopped being about the machines. It was just about you, y’know. About the pain of having lost you.”

“So you understand,” 2B said. “I want to do something. I don’t really know what, yet. But I’m not strong enough to make a decision that separates us again.”

“Really, 2B,” he insisted. “Nobody is asking you to. We’ll figure it out, all of us together.”

“So you do want to find them.”

“Sure,” said 9S. “But maybe it’s alright if we rest a while first.”


End file.
